


in the thicket of your heart

by milostollbooth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, JUST, also u could say merlin/lancelot implied, if u want, like its there but u know, only very vaguely merlin/arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 21:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17926676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milostollbooth/pseuds/milostollbooth
Summary: Merlin struggles to deal with Lancelot's death.





	in the thicket of your heart

For a while after their return from the Isle of the Blessed, Merlin, Arthur, and the knights kept busy helping everyone else in Camelot pick up the pieces of lives shattered by the Dorocha.

The first thing they did when they got a moment to breathe was hold Lancelot’s funeral.

Arthur didn’t ask for specifics about what happened. Merlin told him only what was obvious; that Lancelot had sacrificed himself and the veil had closed. He expected to be pressed further about how that particular scene had played out, but he wasn’t. Arthur left it alone.

Gwen didn’t speak to Merlin about it directly, but he knew about Lancelot’s promise to her, and he knew she thought that she was responsible for his death. Merlin knew that she wasn’t. She deserved to know it too, but every time Merlin made up his mind to tell her the truth something stopped him. 

He went so far as stopping her in the hallway one day and allowing her to stare expectantly at him for several minutes as he tried to form the words, but they became trapped in his throat, and when he felt like he might cry he sent her away with an unconvincing explanation that he had forgotten what he wanted to talk to her about.

He found that he could not speak to Gaius about it either. He had told him the story in full when he returned, and Gaius offered comfort as he always did, and it made Merlin feel better in the moment, but as the days dragged on he found no relief from the deep ache that had settled in his heart. He was conscious of the fact that he was grieving, but there was an edge to the pain that was unfamiliar. He couldn’t place it, and he felt no confidence that it would run itself out with time.

The omnipresence of his monumental hurt made Merlin feel betrayed as the rest of the castle returned to their usual day to day activities. He wanted desperately to fall back into routine with them, but he could not. He performed his duties for Arthur, although if the frequency with which he was berated was anything to go by, not even up to his usual reportedly abysmal standards. The rest of the time he felt like he was floating about the citadel, there but only just. He felt that at some point his continued state of despair would stop sparking sympathy and irritate people instead, but all he could do was hope that they went easy on him.

One night as he was getting Arthur’s room ready for him to go to bed, Merlin dropped a jug of water on the floor. The force of the fall spilled water across the room, and the clang of the metal pitcher seemed to Merlin to echo for several minutes. 

He had made many far worse mistakes lately, but something about standing before the mess as he’d been nearly ready to return to his room and sit alone in his misery brought the prickle of tears to his eyes. 

He turned to get a cloth to clean the floor and almost ran directly into Arthur who had emerged from the changing screen, Merlin assumed to make sure he hadn’t somehow grievously injured himself before he called him an idiot. 

Whatever mocking Arthur been preparing himself to do seemed to vanish from his mind when he saw Merlin.

“Merlin?” he said, and Merlin looked away as if he thought Arthur would let him leave.

“What’s wrong?” Arthur asked when Merlin did not offer an explanation.

Merlin leaned back against the end of the bed and took an unsteady breath, but he still did not speak. The familiar obstruction in this throat that formed every time he tried to talk to Gwen had arisen again and he did not know what he could tell Arthur that would be allowed past the blockade.

“Is this about Lancelot?” Arthur asked.

Merlin managed a nod.

“We all miss him,” Arthur began, but Merlin shook his head vigorously and Arthur stopped.

“It’s not-” he tried, but was thwarted. He managed just the beginnings of several other sentences before he stopped, closed his eyes, swallowed, and tried again. 

“He didn’t do it for Gwen,” Merlin whispered, unsure if he hoped Arthur heard him or not.

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked.

“He didn’t do it for Gwen,” Merlin repeated.  “He… I was going to take your place. I told him that.  I tried to do it. He didn’t have to save you, I was doing that.  He did it for me.”

The last sentence was barely audible.  Merlin hardly dared say it out loud; it was true, he knew it was true, but it felt like speaking it was going to unleash something he wasn’t prepared to handle.

He was correct in this prediction.  After the words left his mouth the tears that had been gathering in his eyes and very occasionally tracking down his face increased exponentially.  He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to make it stop, but he couldn’t, and he buried his face in his arm when a choked sob escaped from his throat against his will.

This was probably why he did not see or hear Arthur move to stand in front of him.  He did not notice it had happened until he felt arms wrapping hesitantly, then more confidently, around him and pulling him to rest his head against a broad shoulder.  Merlin tried not to cry harder. He failed.

“I didn’t know,” he said through sobs, “The Cailleach was speaking to me, when I said I was going to go instead of you, and then I looked up and he was already there, and I couldn’t stop him and it was over and I couldn’t do anything.”

One of Arthur’s hands began to move lightly up and down Merlin’s back.  He did not speak for some time, just waited while Merlin cried. Merlin knew well that Arthur could be tender but he was so unaccustomed to having that tenderness directed entirely at him, and he felt like he calmed down partly from the genuine comfort of the gesture and partly from shock at the novelty of it all.

“I didn’t want this,” Merlin said finally, his voice steadier.  “I just keep thinking it’s my fault.”

“It’s not,” Arthur said, his voice a surprise after its long absence from the scene.

“If I had noticed-” Merlin started, but Arthur interrupted him.

“Then what?” Arthur asked.  “Would you have fought him about it?  You’d have lost.”

Merlin knew this was not true, but he couldn’t explain that to Arthur.

“I am perhaps the best equipped to understand how you feel right now,” Arthur said, which Merlin supposed was more or less the truth.  “I understand the guilt, and the sense of responsibility, but Lancelot made this choice, not you.”

Merlin said nothing.  It was true, but it did not numb the pain.

“He asked me,” Merlin started, then stopped.  He took a deep breath before he tried again. “He asked me, or he said when he looked at me, he wondered if he could give his life for something.  And I told him you have to have something you believe in that’s more important than anything. And then…”

He trailed off.  He did not need to finish.

“He cared for you,” Arthur said.

This was also true and, perhaps, Merlin realized, part of the other, different ache that had been gnawing at his insides since the Isle of the Blessed. Because Lancelot hadn’t just cared for Merlin, he had _known_ him. Really known him, in a way now only Gaius did. Known what and who he was more truly than almost anyone, which made it both deeply humbling to know that he’d felt Merlin was worth dying for as well as indescribably painful to face the vast expanse of the future without him. He’d only been a fixture in Merlin’s life for a year, but the empty space he left was immense.

Merlin wished he could explain this loss to Arthur, but he knew he couldn’t.  Not yet. 

Vaguely Merlin became aware that he was still leaning against Arthur’s shoulder, with one of Arthur’s hands continuing to make soothing motions on his back and the other now gently resting in his hair.  It would have felt strange to call the moment pleasant, Merlin thought, but it was something like it.

Peaceful, maybe.

“Did you really try to die for me again?” Arthur whispered.

Merlin snorted at “again.”

“Guess it’s a habit,” he said.  

Arthur laughed, but Merlin knew it was forced.

“I’m glad you’re here, Merlin,” he said, and Merlin closed his eyes against a fresh wave of tears that welled up at the words and all they implied. He hoped that one day, when Arthur knew him as Lancelot had, he would still feel the same.

“Me too,” Merlin whispered, attempting to banish the guilt he felt when he said it, and he knew Arthur didn’t know quite how much it meant, or how much it was a promise as well as an affirmation, but that mattered slightly less to him than it would have a short time ago.

He sighed and turned his face into Arthur’s neck, glad when Arthur did not object and let the moment last a little longer.


End file.
